Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/632

608 POTTERY [ARCHAIC METHODS. covered with a number of warriors with round shields, all alike, most rudely executed ; almost exactly similar figure-paintings occur on some of the Mycenae pottery, and also on a large amphora from Cyprus (now in the British Museum). which has many bands, on which are painted in red ochre lines of men with crested heads (looking like North - American Indians) riding long weasel- shape. 1 horses. Other bands on the same vase have centaurs, foot - soldiers, and various beasts, the latter, especially some stags, rather better drawn. They are painted in coarse dabs, and, except for a few of the eyes, have no incised lines. Smaller ornaments, such as the svas- tica ft an( i simple forms of rosettes, are often used to decorate the backgrounds flowers. with painted bow- succeeding class of pottery. man m a clianot > Ass y nan m st > le " Among the earlier pottery from Mycenae and the Troad are several very strange vases in coarse clay rudely modelled to indicate a human form. Some have the upper part formed like a head, very like the Egyptian Canopic vases. A great number of " pithi " (TTI#OI), enormous vases shaped something like amphorae, have been discovered in Rhodes, the Troad, and other places, some as much as 7 feet high. Such vessels are often decorated with patterns in relief, chiefly combinations of spirals and the like, some closely resembling the designs on the sculptured architrave from the " Treasury of Atreus " at Mycenae. Vases Vases with Bands or Friezes of Animals on Grounds with ani- sprinkled with Flowers. This is a very large and important mals and c j asSj an( j very numerous specimens have been found widely scattered over the shores of the Mediterranean (see fig. 22). The production of vases of this style appears to have lasted for many centuries ; the earlier ones are rudely executed in dull ochre colours on biscuit clay, like most archaic pottery, while the later ones have paintings in brilliant black enamel on a ground of red clay, thinly covered with a true vitreous glaze. This class of vase- painting, though mostly the work of Greek potters, is dis tinctly Oriental in character, probably Assyro-Phoenician. It is of extreme decorative richness : the surfaces of the vases are well covered, and the designs, though simply treated, are very effective, in FlG - 22 Vase with bands of ani many ways far more success ful as works of decorative mals, Oriental in style. Museum.) (British art than the elaborate and exquisitely drawn figure-pictures on later Greek vases. The ground is thickly covered with small decorative patterns ; fig. 23 shows those used on more archaic vases. The animals that occur most fre quently on the bands are lions, leopards, bulls, goats, deer, with various birds, such as cocks and swans, and also griffins, sphinxes, and sirens. A favourite motive of design is the sacred tree or a sort of column, each with a guardian beast at the sides. This is one of the most interesting of all designs in the history of ornament ; it dates from an FIG. 23. Examples of small ornaments with which the ground of early vases is often studded. extremely early period, was used in ancient Chaldacan art, and was handed on by the Sasanians to the Moslem con querors of Persia ; it survived, though al- tered and after its ^^SfT* $$<8 meaning was long forgotten, till even the 15th century in the textile fabrics worked in Italy after Oriental designs. The column between the beasts occurs on the Lion Gate of Mycenae. In the later art of the Persians a fire -altar takes the place of the column. Before passing on to consider the vari ous classes of distinctly Hellenic pottery it will be con venient to give a list of the technical methods employed in all classes of pottery found in Hellenic sites, and also some account of the inscriptions and various forms of letters which are found on Greek vases. Technical Methods and Inscriptions Archaic and Greek Vases. 1. Prehistoric Pottery from My cense, the Troad, and other Hellenic From Sites. Materials: yellow, red, or black clays; composition, sili- Hellei cate of alumina, with free silica and lime, coloured by different sites, oxides of iron ; slip, made of similar clays ground to a smooth paste. Methods of treatment : (a) plain biscuit clay ; (b) clay covered with fine slip ; (c) ornament of incised patterns, scratched through the slip upon the body of the pot, and sometimes filled in with whiter slip to make a conspicuous pattern ; (d) pottery of hard fine clay, made glossy by a mechanical polish. Most if not all of this pottery was made without the wheel ; but some was so skilfully modelled as to make it difficult to distinguish between hand-made and wheel-made vessels. 2. Pluxnician and other Archaic Pottery. This and all succeeding Phceni classes are wheel-made. Materials : clays and slip as class 1 ; a cian, ; quite white slip was also used, made of a natural sort of pipeclay, or in some cases of a mixture of lime and silica with a little clay to bind it together. Pigments : earth-colours, made of brown and red ochres, occasionally mixed with an additional quantity of oxide of iron and free silica. Methods : the white or yellow slip was usually applied while the vase was revolving on the wheel, either with a brush or by the potter dipping his hands into a bowl of fluid slip just before finishing the final modelling or throwing of the vase ; in some cases it has been applied by dipping the pot into the slip. The method of applying the painted bands is shown above in fig. 20. As a rule these vases were not fired at a sufficient heat to give them a vitreous gloss, though in some cases the heat has been enough to partly vitrify those of the ochre colours which contained a proportion of free silica and alkali. 3. Vases with Black Figures and Incised Lines. Materials : (a) With clay, silica 56 per cent., alumina 19, red oxide of iron 16, lime 7%, black magnesia 1^ per cent., the average of many analyses ; (b) slip, the figure same clay finely ground, and sometimes tinged a deeper red with and i) additional red oxide of iron, the white slip is like that in class cised 2 ; (c) glaze, of almost imperceptible thickness, a silicate of soda ; line*. (d) black pigment, a true vitreous enamel, which owes its deep black to the magnetic oxide of iron (composition soda 17, silica 46, alumina 12, black peroxide of iron 17, lime 6 per cent); (e) chocolate-red pigment, an ochre red sometimes mixed with finely- ground fragments of red pottery ; (/) white pigment, like the white slip of class 2, various analyses, silica 54 to 62, alumina 34 to 43, lime to 3 per cent. Methods : the vase was first turned on the wheel, and, in order to give the pot a surface of deeper red, the slip was applied by a brush or by the hands of the potter while it was still revolving. The outline of the design was next rouglily sketched, either with a point or in light-red ochre with a brush. After the vase had dried sufficiently in the sun so as to become firm, | it was again put on the wheel, and the glaze, finely powdered and mixed with water, was applied to it with a brush as it revolved. The vase then appears, at least in some cases, to have been for the first time fired in the kiln in order to get a smooth almost non- absorbent surface for the use of the painter. In other cases the materials of the red slip and the silicate glaze were mixed, and the two applied together, as was done in the case of the Roman Samian

ware. The painter next set to work and put on the black enamel